Shore to Shore

Jan 2020 issue

In this issue you will find:

Upcoming Thematic calls--p.2 Report from Winnie Byanjeru-- p. 3-4 WEBSITE news—p5 Grandmothers’ Reports – p. 6 – 16

Looking for a creative, fun, part-time, volunteer job? We need a Co-Liaison. For information please contact: [email protected]

This newsletter is by and for the Grandmothers Campaign of the Stephen Lewis Foundation in the Atlantic Provinces. Thank you for all reports and articles. We are looking forward to your feedback and suggestions Brenda Mitton [email protected]

Please visit the website of Grandmothers to Grandmothers Atlantic at: www.g2gatlantic.org

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2020 GRANDMOTHERS CAMPAIGN UPCOMING THEMATIC CALLS

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2020 Upcoming Campaign Conference Calls

The Campaign Calls continue to be productive, idea-generating conversations each month. We’ve set the following themes for calls through May. All calls are held on the third Thursday of the month at 12:30 PM EST. To RSVP email Grandmothers Campaign Officer Winnie Byanjeru [email protected]

 Thursday, January 16th: Goals and Plans for 2020 –a group share of hopes and goals for the coming year!

 Thursday, February 20th: Online Fundraising – this will be more of a webinar format where we’ll walk through how to create an online fundraising page. This call will coincide with the launch of the 2020 online fundraising pages which will be re-vamped to take advantage of some new features.

 Thursday, March 19th: Communicating our Message – how to talk about the Campaign with supporters or in promotional materials.

 Thursday, April 16th: Donor Stewardship – tips for engaging donors, building relationships and avoiding donor fatigue.

 Thursday, May 21st: Engaging Youth – how are grandmothers groups working with young people.

Youth Championing Youth Film

For over a decade, the Stephen Lewis Foundation (SLF) has supported St Francis Healthcare Services, Reach Out Mbuya Parish HIV/AIDS Initiative, and MUJHU in Uganda, and Cotlands and Blue Roof Life Space in South Africa to reach tens of thousands of children and young people each year. Over the course of 2019, those five organizations have documented their efforts to support young people living with and affected by HIV in changing the course of the AIDS pandemic in their communities. The outcomes of this documentation project have now been compiled into a powerful short documentary called “Youth Championing Youth.” The film is about 21 minutes long and we are hoping to release it in a limited capacity during the week of January 20th. We’ve released two short clips: Blue Roof Life Space (South Africa) and St. Francis Health Services (Uganda) through the Granny Bulletin over the past few months.

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An email will be sent to all group chairs notifying them the film is available to stream on a password protected site. We’re doing this in advance of making it widely available via YouTube in the coming months. We’re doing this in case groups want to use it for film screenings or at events before it’s widely available and also because we’re hoping to also submit it to film festivals to increase the exposure to the film and the work of our partners. The link to the website/password will be in the members only section of the Grandmothers Campaign website. We can make the film available on usb/DVD for groups as well. In addition to the film itself, we’ll have a background document to accompany the film to provide context and/or speaking notes should groups like to use the film at an event or meeting. We’ll also have an editable poster that could be used along with possible Facebook image and language. These documents will be available for download in the members only section of the website as well. Finally, one additional document we’re preparing is an FAQ resource in anticipation of questions that might be posed. This will be on the members only section, too, but will be more like a living document, where we can add additional questions as they come up. We’re also hoping to release additional short clips from the film in the coming months. For more information on the film, contact Grandmothers Campaign Officer, Winnie Byanjeru [email protected]

Note from the editor:

These thematic calls are open to all of the membership. If a member of any group has a special interest in any of the topics they can dial in with the special conference call number and code. These numbers are always the same but care must be taken that they are only used at the exact times given above. The numbers are 1-888-884-4538 code when asked on the call is 3443606# Notice too that these dates are the third Thursday of each month.

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OUR WEBSITE

The success of the website is completely dependent on the contributions that the webmaster receives from Atlantic Region grandmother groups. Unless grandmother groups send in information about what is happening in their groups, the website becomes outdated and of little interest to the community. ATLANTIC GRANDMOTHERS’ WEB PAGE: www.g2gatlantic.org The Atlantic Grandmothers’ website exists to inform the Atlantic community about the Grandmothers Campaign, to promote the fund-raising events that the grandmother groups in the Atlantic Region schedule, and to provide an opportunity for the groups to learn of and see pictures of the various events that other groups have held during the year. It is also linked with the National Grandmothers’ Campaign website as well as the Stephen Lewis Foundation website to facilitate the making of donations to the Foundation and the sharing of information at a national level. Nayeema Liail is our IT specialist, who designed our website and who updates it as the information is sent to her. I encourage the Atlantic grandmothers groups to send me notices of the events that you are planning as well as pictures and information that you would like to share. My e-mail address is: [email protected]. Also, please look at the website from time to time to see what’s new. Our website is: g2gatlantic.org Jacqui Sumarah

PSSSST!

No use having a website if we do not tell people it exists! Please try to include the link on Grandmothers’ mail and on any posters you make for upcoming events: www.g2gatlantic.org BJ Kirby

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------************************************************************************** GRANDMOTHERS GROUPS’ REPORTS

Annie’s Grannies – Halifax, Nova Scotia.

We have nothing to report this period, looking forward to the Spring.

Jacqui Sumarah

Bay Grandmothers – St Margaret’s Bay, Nova Scotia

On Sunday, November 3rd we hosted our Fashion Show and Tea at beautiful Shining Waters Marina on St Margarets Bay. We were thrilled when most of the 150 tickets were spoken for within a week of being printed. Local businesses and individuals again generously contributed items for the Silent Auction. Following opening remarks by our co-chairs, Sandy Larsen and Susan Bagley, B.J.Kirby spoke eloquently of the progress made by African grandmothers since the beginning of the G2G campaign. Members then showcased fourteen stunning outfits from Susan’s Jewellery ‘n Things, a local shoppe on the Hammonds Plains Road. Nygard, Bedford presented another array of diverse fashions following the tea. High Tea was served in between the two sets and our guests enjoyed the delicious sandwiches and sweets prepared by our Bay Grans. We were amused when asked for the name of the caterer! Following the second set of modelling, the Silent Auction and Door Prize winners were announced. One of the four door prizes was our African Grandmother shirt which was a big hit with the winner. (Anyone interested, we have more for sale.) Stores that have participated in The Bay Grandmothers Fashion Shows have enjoyed an increase in new customers and in their sales as a result of the exposure of their fashions.

BJ Kirby former Atlantic Liaison, Guest speaker Bay Grandmother Co-chairs Sandy Larson and Susan Bagley

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Ruth Anne Sutherland modeling Susan’s Fashions

One of our members, Beth Matthews is an Artist who has visited Sable Island. After creating a series of paintings of Sable Island Horses, she was encouraged to make produce calendars to sell. Beth decided to donate all profits to the Stephen Lewis Foundation. The demand for both sizes of her wonderful calendar has led to several printings and a significant donation to date. Submitted by

Deb Blackadar

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Bedford Grandmothers – Bedford, Nova Scotia

Our group continues to meet at Scott Manor, Bedford on an informal basis and have held several fundraisers over the last few months. With the Halifax Malika Group, we organized a Craft Table in October at Alderney Landing, Dartmouth. Also, Bedford Players donated 50 tickets for us to sell to their fall production with all proceeds for SLF. The exciting new project, which we hope to be ongoing, is the making and selling of beeswax wraps. Three members perfected the procedure so we're ready for business!! The attached photo was taken in December of members proudly holding up Christmas gift sets. We'll gladly fill your orders, so please email member Virginia MacDonald [email protected] (Submitted by Marilyn Sceles)

Charlottetown Circle of G’Mas – Prince Edward Island We have nothing to report this period, looking forward to the Spring

Nancy Reesor

Cole Harbour / Dartmouth Grannies

We have nothing to report this period, looking forward to the Spring

Nora Dunbar

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Dartmouth Grannies – Nova Scotia

The defining feature of the Dartmouth Grannies for 2019 was the welcoming of new members. Founding members, long term members and new members came together for a busy and successful fall fundraising season. Our September meeting was a flurry of activity catching up with friends we hadn’t seen over the summer and laying out plans for the fall events. In October, under Cheryl’s guidance we were lucky to host another “Day with Tom Forrestall” painting workshop. Mr. Forrestall walked around room talking to attending artists, making suggestions and discussing their interests. The participants were excited to have personal access to such a talented and well known artist. They also had the opportunity to view his sketch books. Dartmouth Players Charity Night production of “The Long Weekend” by Canadian playwright Norm Foster was a sell out this year. Dartmouth Grannies were once again the recipients of Dartmouth Players preview night. It was an entertaining evening. Just a few days after “The Long Weekend” Dartmouth Grannies had a very long weekend. The Findlay Craft Fair and St. James Church soup lunch are back to back events. This year we booked two tables. Items included baked goods, jewelry, knitted hats, scarves and sweaters, handmade produce bags, infant clothing and doll clothes and various crafts. It was a busy day with shifts of volunteers coming and going with ease. Items that didn’t sell were moved to our meeting place, St. James United Church. After the Sunday service we served a soup lunch to the congregation and sold more crafts. Our December Christmas potluck wrapped up the season. Mary, Valerie and their Dartmouth Grannie neighbours hosted the luncheon. The room looked festive and everyone had enjoyable time with good food and good friends. Hoping to sustain the enthusiasm into the “roaring 20’s.” --A.M. Newman

Art workshop: Brenda Adams and Tom Forrestall Art workshop: Margaret and Cheryl

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Christmas potluck: starting at left, BJ, Joanne, Marian, Peggy, Susy, Francie, Evelyn Christmas potluck: starting at left: Shirley, Maureen, Judy, Marcia, Valerie, Mary

Grandmothers Helping Grandmothers - Fredericton, New Brunswick Paula MacQuarrie has stepped down as Chair of GHG Fredericton after leading us through the latter part of 2018 and 2019. The position is being shared by Terri MacLean and Marie Cashion. Marie is the founder of the Fredericton Grandmothers’ organization and helped establish many of our ongoing activities. Terri MacLean is relatively new to the group but has been involved in many activities through her church and other volunteer organizations. Together they are a great team for us.

The main activities through the Fall were the Dance held in November and the Wreath Campaign. Both require effort on the part of the organizers and we are very thankful to have members come forward both to lead the efforts and to take part in the many tasks involved in the events. Both events are profitable and allow us to send donations to the Grandmothers to Grandmothers’ campaign and Help Lesotho.

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This Fall we were fortunate to have Nancy MacGarvie host a wine and hors d’oeuvres evening for our members. This took the place of our annual potluck and allowed us to come together to socialize and have fun. It also provided an opportunity to thank Paula MacQuarrie for serving as Chair. Through many changes, the Grandmothers Helping Grandmothers Fredericton continues to be a vital organization with an enthusiastic membership.

Paula MacQuarrie Retiring Chair Terri MacLean and Marie Cashion New Co-Chairs Malaika Grandmothers of Halifax – Nova Scotia

Last fall we organized a few work sessions to produce some bead work which we then tried to sell at the Alderney Landing Farmers Market in Dartmouth and at a crafts fair in Cole Harbour. We tried this three times, had fun and made a modest amount of money. A couple of us attended the fashion show organized by the Bay grandmothers and some of us enjoyed a Christmas lunch.

For health reasons and personal commitments our group will not be able to organize events before the summer. However some of us will try to participate in the HRM Fabric and Yarn Sale and Stride 2020.

Winnie Kwak

L to R: Carol, Michele and Winnie. Craft L to R.: Vicky Hiscock, Carol MacAskill, L to R.: Manon Roy, Vicky and Winnie time at Michele's . Winnie Kwak, Michele Bortolussi selling at Mary Anne’s Craft sale

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Rockingham Grannies - Halifax, Nova Scotia Thanks to the kind assistance of the Dartmouth Grannies we were able to get a table at the Finlay Community Centre. Jane Trefry crafted felt nativity crèches and unique characters, Pauline Kemp supplied a variety of hats and scarves, it was a great success. Sybil and Chris Bryant held THEIR Dare to Dine, they have been hosting it on their own for the past decade. It is the highlight of our year we all participate, we have a super Christmas party ...and we may have a new member. Rockingham Grannies

Marian Amey

Sackville Support Group - Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia

We are looking forward to the Yarn and fabric Sale with the Halifax Area Grandmothers, other than that we have nothing further to report.

Judi Fullerton

Shediac Area Grandmothers for Africa / Semer Amour avec Grandmamans Africaines - S.A.G.A. – Shediac, New Brunswick

Fall is a very busy time for our Shediac group. We go into high gear for our biggest event of the year, the “Ladies Night Out” held in the month of October. This year we had “black and white” for our decorating emphasis. Joanne Blight, our decorating chair, again outdid herself with large pots of branches spray painted white to help fill up our large space in the event centre. All of us wore black and white and Sandra Wallace made us all white flower corsages to let people know who we were. Barb Breau coordinated our silent auction and it brought in the most money of our four year history of the event. Our wonderful guest MC for the evening, Diane Ross, kept mentioning that if folks didn’t win the silent auction item they bid on that they might want to make a donation at the end of the event. The result was that we had our highest donation total ever too so in all it was a great event of which we all could feel proud. On December 1st we all, including partners, met at my house for a Christmas wine and cheese and social time. We are planning to try once again to find a signature event to do this spring. To date our ideas have not been anywhere nearly as successful as our fall event so we are looking for something new. Fingers crossed. Submitted by Brenda Mitton ( SAGA group facilitator and your GRL and newsletter organizer)

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Nancy Burridge and Jane Drover from TAG Grandothers Assisting the models

The models for 2019 MC Diane Ross/ Fashion show commentator

Susan O’Keefe

One of the 29 tables Donation Table

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Shore for African Grandmothers-SAG, Nova Scotia Shore for African Grandmothers had a very successful autumn despite the cancellation of our annual purse and jewelry sale due to Hurricane Dorian. In true Grandmother fashion a couple of our members stepped up and managed to sell some of the merchandise to friends and saved the day. A group of local quilters, which includes two of our own members, continue to donate the proceeds from the sale of their beautiful hand-work to our cause, for which we were very thankful. In October members invited friends and family to Dare to Dine. Guests enjoyed a three-course dinner and were entertained by friends on piano and guitar. We are grateful for the use of Ship Harbour Hall and for all who donated to our endeavors, be it cash, time or talents. Shore for African Grandmothers is very proud of our eastern shore community, which continues to support our commitment to the Grandmothers of Africa. Submitted by Linda Marks Tantramar Area Grandmothers –TAG

Our small group of seven core members gathered to meet this fall to plan for our 10th annual Grannies Soup Night , which was held on December 6, 2019. We were fortunate to have good weather once again and enjoyed a great turnout of members of our community who have come to look forward to this annual event to get together with family and friends, support the Grandmothers Campaign and participate in Sackville’s Moonlight Madness event. For their freewill donation, they were able to select from an amazing variety of 18 different soups, rolls, biscuits and plenty of cookies ! An enjoyable evening was had and our 10th Soup Night has been declared our most successful! As in past years, we are very grateful for the support of several Grand- others who assist our small group in so many different ways, to make this event such a success. We have begun work on a Soup Night cookbook, so perhaps this will become our 10th Anniversary project ! We are also considering holding smaller « Dare to Dine « events as ways to keep our small group together and continue to contribute to the campaign. A couple of us enjoyed a fabulous « Ladies Night Out « in Shediac and were very pleased to support that event in October. Happy 2020 !

left to right Back row: Anne McLeod, Shirley Oliver, Ruth Buckinger, Margaret Beattie,Susan Spence, Brenda Allen, Jane Drover front row( seated)Nancy Burridge, Heather Patterson Submitted by Nancy Burridge

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Terra Nova Grannies

Terra Nova Grannies The Terra Nova Grannies continue to meet sporadically throughout the year with several meetings happening around the dates of our public events which are two Scrabble Games + Tea afternoons (one in Spring and one in the Fall) and our walk in June… “Stride to Turn the Tide” As was mentioned in the last “Shore to Shore” our annual Stride to Turn the Tide took place on Saturday, June 22, 2019. We walked around a lake – called Quidi Vidi Lake. We usually wait till the end of June due to our remarkable weather here in St. John’s! The walk was blessed with a good day… sun, blue skies and no wind! As we have mentioned before, many of our walkers and also those who can’t do the walk, stay and enjoy various delicious hot soups, with rolls and cookies along with refreshments. It’s a time when there is much camaraderie and lots of chat and laughter. On December 2, we held another Fall Scrabble + Tea afternoon in St. John’s at the Lantern which is a community facility run by the Presentation Sisters. This time we had 135 participants and again the event was MCd by a local CBC celebrity - Anthony Germain. He is a great supporter of the Terra Nova Grannies, and likewise a politician who challenges Anthony every time now is Lorraine Michaels and she also is a keen supporter of the Terra Nova Grannies. We are blessed as these two individuals attend every Scrabble game we have along with some of their colleagues. We raised the cost of entry this time and there wasn’t one participant who complained. We continue to provide lots of tea, coffee, juice and water as well as a big assortment of cookies, cakes, scones and anything to please the palate! Every time, we are asked by participants to host more Scrabble events. Presently 2 a year is sufficient for us grannies! We are very fortunate to have local support for our events from the Presentation Sisters, Anthony Germain and CBC, as well as the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB), which is our base for Stride, and some of our local politicians. During these last six months, we have raised a lot of money for the Grandmother’s Campaign and donations keep coming in. We circulated the information from SLF re World AIDS day December 1st asking all members to read and share wherever possible in order for this information to be understood better than it seems to be. One of our members sent it into her church which copied the entire page and placed it in the Order of Service for that day. An excellent way to educate and share. We continue to have a strong core group, although, like many other groups we are still trying to sort out succession problems and keep hoping that committed and energetic new members will join us. One of our younger members – Pat Rivers – organized the Fall Scrabble +

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Tea and this was very successful. Meanwhile we will do our best to support this very worthy cause. –Jennifer Whitfield These pictures are all from the Scrabble + Tea event

Left to right: Mary Matthews, Anthony Germain, CBC anchor person Pat Rivers (grey hair) her husband, and Janette Georghion, Elizabeth-Anne of 6pm News - Here and Now their friends Malischewski

Ubuntu Grannies- Fall River, Nova Scotia

Ubuntu group held a Christms dinner together at “Resto’s” in early December. We are now in the planning process for a Spring Breakfast to be held on Saturday, April 14th. We haven’t held a breakfast for the last couple of years but found in the past that they were quite successful so we are going to reintroduce this activity. Nancy Fullerton

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